So we haven't had a post your car type thread for a long time. I don't purchase vehicles very often and I don't really get rid of many either. My stable of vehicles has not changed since 2010 when I purchased a pickup truck. Until this week, that is. I purchased the following vehicle for my wife. She drove it for the first time yesterday and of course someone hit her. Luckily it was very minor and she is fine. I was able to repair the damage myself. It's actually on the side featured in the picture. Behind the car is our old Grand Cherokee (certified to be 1/1024 Native American). I've been driving that lately since I damaged my truck. It's mostly repaired at this point, have a trip to the body shop for some frame measuring/repair and to paint the new grill then I will be welding a new bumper.

I drive a 2000 Toyota Camry with a door you have to yank and a trunk you have to slam. Engine runs beautifully, though.

Here's The Beast, The Bandit, The Desert Fox, "The WTF is That Thing," The Warthog!




I've had it for over a decade, and so far, only two people (one of them our very own GBK) knew what it is.


I also have been known to ride a motorbike from time to time.

This is my car. It is named Lana. It runs on bifuel CNG and gas. It's amazing.

you should throw that boat into the ocean

For real tho that's really cool. I've worked with a couple of alternative fuel enterprises and it's exciting to see where things are heading.

Yeah, nice car.

Working on changing the transmission fluid in the truck today and a pan bolt stripped. Really annoying since it seemed to be going straight and smooth but obviously wouldn't tighten at the end. Always something...

Sounds like it's Helicoil time.

I'm going to try to find a slightly oversized bolt first and if I can't make that work look into Helicoil.

Yeah there is some cool stuff. I'm especially interested in biogas, and hydrogren would obviously be great if the details can get worked out. In this case, CNG was an incredibly easy install because there's so much space in there and it's carburated. Have you seen this?

Thanks Wookie!

That's pretty cool, but as usual, the battery will be the weak link.

A friend of mine works for a company called Omnitek that sells diesel to NG conversions. I did some work for him a few years ago because he got a contract to do 700 UPS brown trucks. He's done work all over the world, on buses, trash trucks, generators, boats, anything with a big diesel engine. I only got to work on the brown trucks. They basically take off the heads, drill them for spark plugs, change some rings, add some hoses, weld on a tank, connect it all the to computer and bam!, natural gas engine (either CNG or RNG or LNG, customer's choice). The kit + install costs only a little bit more than an engine overhaul, so UPS would send their super crappy Navistar VT engine trucks when it was time for their normal maintenance overhaul and have them converted. By the way, the Navistar VTs are the worst engines ever made. No joke. They're also called the Ford 6.0L Power Stroke. Never buy one. Anyway, UPS was quite happy that the new kit engine doesn't have all the same problems as the original. It makes really good power.

Actually, the 6.0 Powerstroke is the most fixable newest diesel truck engine. It's what I have. They're rock solid when they're properly fixed. Making sure it's properly fixed is the tricky part.

Yeah if the battery thing get fixed most of our problems will get fixed but I am not hopeful. I very very rarely drive so even something with a subpar battery would probably meet my needs. The main reason I have that car is to show people that you can convert old things and if you just use them less you can meet your needs and still reduce blah blah blah blah

Didn't they lose a lot of power? This thing is like a tortoise going up hills unless I have it on gas (and even then, the 425s were not powerhouses) I would be sure those trucks would go up hills at like 5 mph

vrom vrom

oh wow that's big sorry

I drive a mk7 Fiesta, and I've never cared to take a photo of any car I've owned.

i drive a subie outback, it's my second one so it's called twobie, but same as baconfish really.

that would change maybe if you had a better car

My life is a big sorry

It wouldn't. I don't fetishize cars. I don't covet "nicer" cars, and I've never thought of my cars as objects of affection or pride or fascination or anything like that. My feelings about cars are very utilitarian; if it's working and it's comfortable, I don't really think about it at all.

I don't have any pictures of our family minivan or my little pickup truck. Those are just utility; they're not special. The warthog and motorcycle I have spent a lot of time on, hence the pictures. I've cut and welded and customized to get it how I want it, for what I want it to do. It's not just something that rolled off a line. It's something that takes time and effort, something that's been personalized, and something that has a specific purpose. It's more than utility. It's special. It's like taking a picture of a painting you've painted, a guitar you've built, a topiary you've cut, or a JK level you've designed. I get that some people just don't care for automobiles, but to many folks, it's a hobby. It is for me.

Yeah! It's not that I don't understand it, it just doesn't have that impact for me. I think it's cool that it does for people, especially in cases like yours where it's a hobby, where it's a functional object that you maintain yourself, that you customize, that has some history or something.

The warthog does look pretty cool, I too would see that in person and say wtf is this?

My car is the same year model as A New Hope and people sleep with me because I drive it. Neither of those are on your list!

None of the quirks that you cultivate and tell us about all the time are on my list, Spook.

>:-/

I more or less recently sold my trusty old Renault Clio because having a second car turned out to be more expensive than useful and now my means of transportation to work are the bus and the train. But there's so much construction around the train station that the bus station has gone further and further away. :-/

My identity is real shallow I have nothing else to talk about!

Awww poor dixon

You can see the back of my truck in this video I just shot this afternoon. I was backing into the garage and I saw a chipmunk run inside. Plz ignore all the random junk stored in there.

https://www.massassi.net/etc/rodent_1080p.mov

What mk Clio?

My first car was a mk2 that I inherited from my sister when I learned to drive. It died when the timing belt went when I was on the motorway on the way to see The Dark Knight Rises on the day it opened. It saved me from having to sit through the film that day so silver linings I guess?

There's a kid at my work that has one, same colour and everything, and I've been tempted to ask if they'd give me a shot [or sell it to me for about £50].

I liked that car.

What does it mean when you say "give me a shot?"

I don't remember what mk. I think it was from 2003. It was nice enough.

Let me drive it.



Wiki says that's the same model I had, but with a facelift.

I happened to realize that I never even really explained what the new-to-us car in the picture is. It's a 2014 Subaru Outback 3.6R. I gently guided my wife to this model because we've already got one gigantic vehicle and don't need another large vehicle, she wanted an SUV or crossover. The Outback is considered a wagon, which she seems to detest the idea of a wagon for some reason, but most car reviewers consider it to be more of an SUV or crossover. It has some height to it and with the 3.6 liter six cylinder engine has some pretty good power but still reasonable economy.

This particular vehicle does not have all of the top of the line features. It has the middle factory stereo which I prefer because I can add a factory backup camera to it, which she wants, but can also more easily replace if the need arise. It doesn't have all of the safety self-driving stuff which would have been nice and it only came with one key fob. I would have liked dual position memory seating since we are at opposite extremes. She's 5'0", I'm 6'2".

I got turned on to this year model of Outback when I decided to research what vehicles mechanics say are easy to work on. I wanted whatever vehicle we got for her to be easy for me to work on and have parts support. As a bonus, Subaru has a reputation for reliability. Maybe not Toyota level but pretty good. Oh, this car also has a proper automatic transmission instead of a CVT. Another bonus in my mind.

I forgot to mention that the gentleman I purchased the vehicle from asked me if I had any plans for the car. I was a taken a little off guard, I was just planning on this as a nice reliable family vehicle that my wife would primarily drive. He sort of enlightened me on the Subaru modding scene. So very subtle lifts exist that don't really change the on-road characteristics of the vehicle. I thought that was interesting because one of the reasons my wife preferred a larger vehicle is the better visibility of being higher. There are a few other mods I'm thinking about in the future for usefulness and uniqueness that I may pursue, with her input and permission as this is really meant to be hers.

LOL, finally got around to this. Your garage looks way better than mine does right now. I was going to work on it today but I put it off for the weekend.

Yeah, I wanted to make a "lol, stupid random junk in your garage" comment but then I remembered the state of my garage...

Isn't that just a squirrel?

Brian: I see you have longbows and a deer vitals target bag, as well as a crappy army surplus camo jacket. Are you a bowhunter?

lol, a tundra? blood traitor.


j/k I'm on my second one

The only Toyota I've ever owned was a 1990 Corolla 5-speed. It had 186,000 miles when I bought it for $400, and it had 243,000 when I sold it for $400.

[The friend to whom I sold it tells me he still drives it, it's got to be over 300k by now.]